Notre Dame Cathedral sets reopening date after devastating fire

The reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris goes quick sufficient to permit its reopening to guests and trustworthy on the finish of 2024, lower than six years after a fireplace ravaged its roof, French officers say.

The cathedral’s iconic spire, which collapsed within the blaze, will steadily begin reappearing above the monument this 12 months in a robust sign of its revival, the military common in control of the colossal venture, Jean-Louis Georgelin, stated.

“The return of the spire in Paris’ sky will in my opinion be the symbol that we are winning the battle of Notre Dame,” he told the Associated Press.

one of the carpenters puts the skills of their medieval colleagues on show on the plaza in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020. — One of the carpenters puts the skills of their medieval colleagues on show on the plaza in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. (AP)

The reconstruction itself started last year, after more than two years of work to make the monument stable and secure enough for artisans to start rebuilding it.

Authorities have made the choice to rebuild the 12th-century monument, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, the way it was before.

That includes recreating the 93-metre-high spire added in the 19th century by architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.

Meanwhile, an exhibition called “Notre-Dame de Paris: at the heart of the construction site” is to open to guests on Tuesday in an underground facility in entrance of the cathedral.

Accessible for free, it highlights ongoing operations on the site and the expertise and skills of workers.

It also features some remains from the fire and works of art from the cathedral.

Georgelin said the cathedral will reopen in December 2024, in line with the goal set by President Emmanuel Macron just after the fire — yet it will be too late for the Paris Olympic Games scheduled in summer next year.

“My job is to be ready to open this cathedral in 2024. And we will do it,” Georgelin said.

“We are fighting every day for that and we are on a good path.”

A worker takes a picture of the scaffolding's at the reconstruction site ahead a visit of the French president at the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, in Paris, Friday, April 15, 2022. — A worker takes a picture of the scaffolding’s at the reconstruction site ahead a visit of the French president at the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, in Paris. (AP)

This “means that the archbishop of the capital will be in a capacity again to celebrate the Catholic liturgy in his cathedral” and the monument will also “be open for tourists to visit,” he stated.

Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak told the AP that this doesn’t mean all the renovation will be finished then.

“There will nonetheless be some renovation work happening in 2025,” she careworn.

Meanwhile, the brand new exhibition close to the cathedral will enable guests, together with these coming for the Olympics, “to live what could be this experience of visiting Notre-Dame in a brand new way,” she stated.

In addition to the free go to, a digital actuality present will enable paying guests to dive into the historical past of the cathedral.

“That will help also tourism in Paris,” she added.

Every day in the capital and across the country, about 1000 people work to rebuild Notre Dame, Georgelin said.

“The biggest challenge is to comply precisely every day to the planning we have done,” he stressed.

“We have a lot of different works to achieve: the framework, the painting, the stones, the vault, the organ, the stained glass and so on.”

Philippe Jost, managing director of the federal government company overseeing the reconstruction, famous that the end result “can be trustworthy to the unique structure” both because “we are sticking to the vanished shapes of the cathedral” and because ”we are also sticking to the materials and construction methods” of medieval times.

“We don’t do concrete vaults that look like stone, we do stone vaults that we rebuild as they were built in the Middle Ages,” Jost said, adding that the roof framework will also be made from oak like it initially was.